Vice President of India (Articles 63-71) for UPSC

By Dooit UPSC expert · 3 August 2026 · 11 min read

The Vice President of India is the second-highest constitutional office in the country, created by Article 63 and governed by Articles 63 to 71 in Part V of the Constitution. He is elected by an electoral college of the members of both Houses of Parliament, serves a five-year term, acts as the ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, and steps in to act as President when that office falls vacant. For UPSC this is a small chapter that pays out reliably — Prelims mines its exact provisions year after year, and the September 2025 Vice-Presidential election has turned it into a live current-affairs link for the 2026 cycle.

In thirty years of coaching, I have watched the Vice President get treated as an afterthought — the "spare tyre" of the Constitution, a name to memorise and move on. Then Prelims asks who exactly votes in his election, or whether the Rajya Sabha alone can remove him, and a two-mark gift walks out of the hall. This chapter is short, self-contained and almost entirely factual, which is precisely why it is high-yield: there is nothing to interpret, only provisions to fix precisely. Get the electoral college, the removal route and the President-versus-Vice-President contrasts locked, and you convert a topic most aspirants half-know into guaranteed marks. Let us build it the way the examiner wants it, and then attach the 2025 election so your current-affairs answer has a constitutional spine.

Why the office exists

The framers borrowed the office of Vice President from the American model, but with a deliberate Indian twist. In the United States the Vice President is a running mate elected with the President. In India the office was designed for two entirely practical jobs. First, the country needed a presiding officer for the Rajya Sabha — the Upper House needs a chairman just as the Lok Sabha needs a Speaker. Second, the framers wanted a ready constitutional stand-in so that the office of President is never left empty even for a day. The Vice President answers both needs in one post: he chairs the Rajya Sabha in normal times, and he acts as President the moment that chair falls vacant. Understand the office as a bridge — not a rival to the President, but a device that keeps two institutions running without a gap.

Articles 63 to 71: the constitutional map

The whole chapter sits in Part V of the Constitution. Fix what each article does, because Prelims loves to swap article numbers between the President and the Vice President to catch the half-prepared.

Election of the Vice President (Article 66)

This is where the marks are, so learn it to the word. The Vice President of India is elected by an electoral college consisting of the members of both Houses of Parliament — the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. Two points make or break the question:

• The electoral college includes both elected and nominated members of Parliament. Nominated members do vote in the Vice-Presidential election.
• No state legislature takes part. This is unlike the President, whose electoral college includes the elected members of the state legislative assemblies.

The election is held in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote, and the voting is by secret ballot. Because the whole college sits in Parliament, the Vice-Presidential election is a compact, Delhi-based exercise compared with the sprawling Presidential one.

Qualifications for Vice President

Under Article 66, a candidate must:

• be a citizen of India;
• have completed 35 years of age;
• be qualified for election as a member of the Rajya Sabha (the Council of States) — note, the Rajya Sabha, not the Lok Sabha, which is the qualification for the President; and
• not hold any office of profit under the Union, a state or a local authority. Sitting Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Governors and Union or state ministers are not treated as holding an office of profit for this purpose.

Term, oath, resignation and removal (Articles 67 and 69)

The Vice President holds office for a term of five years from the date he enters upon office. But the office does not simply lapse: he continues to hold office even after the term expires until his successor enters upon office, so the post is never vacant for want of an election. He is eligible for re-election — there is no bar on a second or further term.

He can resign at any time by writing to the President. Before entering office he makes an oath or affirmation under Article 69, administered by the President or a person appointed by the President — a nice contrast with the President's own oath, which the Chief Justice of India administers.

The two functions: presiding officer and stand-in President

Everything the Vice President does falls under two heads. Keep them separate in your mind and you will never fumble a functions question.

Ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha (Article 64)

The Vice President is the ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. He presides over its sittings, maintains order, decides on points of order, and performs for the Upper House what the Speaker does for the Lok Sabha. But there is a distinction you must nail: the Speaker is a member of the Lok Sabha, whereas the Vice-President is not a member of the Rajya Sabha. He presides over a House he does not belong to. Consequently he has no vote in the first instance; he can exercise only a casting vote in the case of an equality of votes.

One more exam-safe point: there is no separate salary attached to the office of Vice-President as such. He is paid a salary in his capacity as the ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. When he acts as President, he draws the emoluments of the President instead.

Acting as President (Article 65)

This is the office's headline job. When a vacancy arises in the office of President — by death, resignation, removal or otherwise — the Vice President acts as President until a new President is elected, which must happen within six months. He also discharges the President's functions when the President is temporarily unable to act because of absence or illness, until the President resumes. While acting as, or discharging the functions of, the President, the Vice President enjoys all the powers and immunities of the President and draws the President's emoluments.

Two consequences worth carrying: first, while acting as President, the Vice President does not perform the duties of Chairman of the Rajya Sabha — the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha steps in to preside. Second, if both the offices of President and Vice-President fall vacant at the same time, the Chief Justice of India (or, in his absence, the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court available) acts as President. This actually happened in 1969, when the then Chief Justice, M. Hidayatullah, acted as President — a concrete example that lifts a Mains answer.

President versus Vice President: the comparison examiners love

If you learn one table from this chapter, learn this one. Almost every tricky question on the office is really a President-versus-Vice-President contrast in disguise.

Filling a casual vacancy (Article 68)

When the office of Vice-President falls vacant before the term ends — by death, resignation or removal — Article 68 says the election to fill it must be held as soon as possible. Note the phrasing: the Constitution fixes no outer time limit for a Vice-Presidential casual vacancy, unlike the six-month cap on the President. And here is the point aspirants routinely miss: the person elected to fill the casual vacancy holds office for a full five-year term from the date he enters office — not merely the unexpired remainder of his predecessor's term. That single rule explains exactly what happened in 2025.

The 2025 Vice-Presidential election: your current-affairs link

The chapter went live in 2025. The sitting Vice-President resigned during his term, on health grounds, creating a casual vacancy — a reminder that mid-term exits are not unheard of; back in 1969, V.V. Giri had resigned as Vice-President to contest the Presidential election. The Vice-Presidential election that followed was held on 9 September 2025, and Shri C.P. Radhakrishnan was elected. He was sworn in on 12 September 2025 as the 15th Vice President of India and ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, with the oath administered by President Droupadi Murmu under Article 69.

For the exam, do not stop at the name and date — attach the constitutional mechanics the event illustrates. It was a casual vacancy under Article 68, filled "as soon as possible"; the person elected gets a fresh five-year term, not the remainder of the predecessor's; the electoral college was Parliament alone, nominated members included; and the oath came from the President, not the Chief Justice. Answer a current-affairs question this way — event plus provision — and you signal exactly the conceptual command examiners reward.

How Prelims and Mains test this chapter

For Prelims, the yield sits in crisp static facts: the composition of the electoral college, the inclusion of nominated members, the exclusion of state legislatures, the Rajya Sabha qualification, the 35-year age bar, the removal route under Article 67(b), and the six-month rule for a Presidential (not Vice-Presidential) vacancy. Expect statement-based and match-the-following questions, very often framed as a President-versus-Vice-President swap. For Mains GS Paper 2, the office appears under the functioning of Parliament and constitutional posts — usually as part of a broader question on the Rajya Sabha, the presiding officers, or the offices that keep the executive continuous. Because it straddles the executive and the legislature, prepare it alongside the President and the Parliament chapters rather than in isolation. Our guide to the President of India gives you the natural pairing for every contrast in the table above, and the Parliament of India guide shows how the Chairman fits into the working of the Rajya Sabha.

How to actually study this chapter

Build a single one-page sheet and revise it to reflex: the article map (63 to 71), the electoral-college composition, the qualifications, the five-year term with the "continues till successor" rule, the Article 67(b) removal route, the two functions, and the full President-versus-Vice-President table. Read the bare articles once from the official text of the Constitution so the exact language sits in your memory instead of a paraphrase. Then test the chapter against real papers — the surest way to see that Prelims mines the electoral college and removal while Mains mines the office's role in continuity of the executive. This is precisely the kind of small, high-confusion, high-return topic our AI is built to drill. On Dooit you can generate targeted MCQs on the electoral college and the removal procedure, have the President-versus-Vice-President distinctions tested until they stick, and get your Mains answer on constitutional offices evaluated against a proper framework — in English or Hindi. Learn the chapter here on Dooit; let the app keep it locked in until exam day, the way our Indian Polity preparation strategy lays out.

Frequently asked questions